Overview

This ingeniously small-scale sci-fi adventure of a tiny, shiny alien ball-being with strange powers and a taste for electricity, crisps and custard, was released the same year as Star Wars, and foreshadows E.T., but was made for just a fraction of the cost of either. It was produced for The Children’s Film Foundation, makers of intelligent, fun films for British kids, from the 1950s to the 1980s.

Like all CFF films, this compact tale of close encounters was shot on a shoestring. But it still boasts outstanding visuals, with striking special effects by Brian Johnson (who worked on 2001 and Alien) and Barry Leith (animator of Paddington and the Wombles). Not long afterwards, director Harley Cokeliss was enlisted to shoot the SFX sequences for the second Star Wars film, The Empire Strikes Back.

Britain’s favourite bear returns for another adventure. Porridge rather than marmalade looks set to be Paddington's new staple after he's framed for a robbery, unless the Brown family can help solve the mystery.

Stunning sci-fi thriller steeped in post-Watergate paranoia, following a hoaxed mission to Mars and a trio of astronauts' desperate flight for survival, with Elliott Gould, James Brolin and O.J. Simpson.

Flight crash investigator Bill Smith (Kris Kristofferson) discovers that time travellers from the future are visiting the present day and stealing passengers from doomed aircraft to repopulate a future, infertile human race.